Singer Kelly Clarkson has been criticized about her weight for years. She’s always been very nonchalant about it, and hasn’t gotten mad or defensive. (Not that she wouldn’t have had the right to, you know?)

Kelly just lost 30 pounds, thanks in part to a new relationship that lifted her spirits and helped her feel better about the weight she was at. When I first read that she had lost weight due to a new boyfriend I got the impression that the guy was pressuring her to lose weight, but that’s not the case. Kelly takes the cover of the new issue of US Weekly, and the way “an insider” tells it she made the decision herself, bolstered by a guy who loved her at the size she was. It was a really nice weight loss story, one of the best that I’ve read. Just as you’d expect from Kelly, she doesn’t get a big head or sound sanctimonious when she’s describing how she lost weight. In fact, US Weekly uses some quotes I’ve already heard from her, so it doesn’t even look like they have a new interview with Kelly. They don’t have any new photos or anything either.

Here’s more, including how she lost weight: through portion controlled meals and by working with a trainer five days a week.

After enduring constant weight scrutiny ever since she nabbed the inaugural American Idol crown in 2002, the 30 year-old has revealed her healthiest figure yet. Thanks to a five days a week training schedule and a portion-control diet, the 5-foot-4 singer has shed a remarkable 30 pounds in the last six months. “She feels better about herself than she ever has,” a source says of Clarkson, now just 10 pounds away from her ultimate goal weight.

And [Clarkson] has someone to celebrity with when her scale hits that dream number: her Nashville-based beau, Brandon Blackstock, 35. Clarkson credits the talent manager (son of her own longtime manager, Navel, and stepson of Reba McEntire) with inspiring her slimdown. “No one likes to be not toned when you are dating someone,” she says. And when that someone is as encouraging as Blackstock, who manages Blake Shelton, staying motivated is a snap. Says the insider, “Brandon is the first guy ever who tells her how beautiful and sexy she is. She wants to look good for him…”

And Blackstock’s fitness-loving attitude has rubbed off on Clarkson, who once told Us, “I only run when I feel like I need to get destressed.” Says the insider “He motivates her. She says she can’t just lie there watching TV when he’s at the gym.”

[From US Weekly, print edition, June 11, 2012]

Well congratulations to Kelly. I was inspired by her weight loss story and how matter-of-fact this whole article was. I like her a lot, and I’ll probably catch a few episodes of the new singing reality show she’s co-starring on, “Duets.” It premiered last week on ABC, and is on again tonight, Thursday May 31. You can also watch it on ABC.com.

Good for her! She looks awesome. I always hated how sh*tty people were about her weight gain. I always believed she was someone who really wasn’t concerned about weight fluctuation, unlike a lot of other celebs who claim to “embrace their curves” only to crash diet a couple months later.

I have to say I understand the whole motivation-by-partner thing. I love going to the gym with my hub and we challenge each other with what we know how to do. And I definitely don’t like being solo when I know he’s AT the gym… When I talked him into joining in the first place!

True about the cover. And honestly what the hell is so interesting about someone going on a diet. So what? Poeple do that all the time. Put them on the cover for something the rest of us can’t do, like her singing.

I like her a lot. She seems to have almost the exact same body type as Rachel Ray.

For the past few years she’s been going on and on about how she doesn’t care about her body or her weight and how she’s a spokesperson for overweight people, yet as soon as she finds a man she talks about how being with him inspired her to lose weight. Sure it’s great and everything but maybe instead of catapulting herself as a rolemodel for “insecure overweight women” she should have thought before saying she would change her body weight for a man? Talk about insecurity

I don’t think I’ve ever seen her say that she’s the spokesperson for overweight women though. I’ve only ever seen her say that she’s OK with herself regardless of what she weighs, and she doesn’t let that define her. To me there’s a difference.
I have seen other celebs do what you’re saying, but I don’t think Kelly has ever been one of them.

She didn’t change her weight for a man. She pointed out that which is true for many people-being with someone, having to be nude around someone and be intimate with them-you want to feel good about how you look. It’s kind of a wake up call. I think anyone can relate to that. I think it’s refreshingly honest. Her boyfriend uses a trainer too. They stay healthy. I see nothing wrong with that.

My current partner is the first I’ve ever had who constantly, genuinely tells me how beautiful I am. Over the first two years of our relationship I gained 15-20 pounds, but his opinion never changed and his compliments never decreased, and thanks to his positive affects on my chronic depression and self-loathing, I’ve since lost 30 pounds. He loves my new body (as do I), but he loved my old body, too.

On the flip side, my previous boyfriend once told me that he wouldn’t have sex with me again until I lost five pounds… and openly ogled naked, stick-thin models on my own computer, telling me it was because I “couldn’t satisfy” his “aesthetic needs” anymore. Needless to say, I kept *gaining* weight until that relationship ended.

Sometimes it’s okay to admit that a boyfriend or girlfriend was the reason behind a body transformation… it doesn’t have to mean there was pressure or criticism involved.

I love her, too. She’s seems very nice and natural. She does look great with the weight off, so I hope she continues to go in that direction. It’s also a matter of good health, not just looking good..she will look better in clothes, too. Happy for her.